


A Better Life

by queermoraghid (TheDoctorIsIcecube)



Series: Meant to Be [4]
Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Homophobia, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-06 05:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 18,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15187337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorIsIcecube/pseuds/queermoraghid
Summary: Pyra and Mythra, after falling on hard times, ended up as refugees in Indol, with nowhere to go. Rex came to Indol to make his fortune in salvaging, and Nia ended up there after war tore her home apart. But when the four of them meet, they know that from now, things will be able to change, and that change will be for the better.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaand another one in this series :) as before, a few things going on will make more sense if you read the previous fics in the series, but it's by no means compulsory.

Mythra had sort of hoped that her family would be better prepared for this eventuality. The titan they lived on was small, slow, and they knew it was coming towards the end of being an inhabitable landmass. As titans went, it was a good one to live on, and their small village had always been fairly affluent. Yet, when the time came for moving on, they couldn’t get refuge anywhere.

She and Pyra were twelve years old when their father told them that he was sending them to a boarding school in Indol. Neither of them wanted to go. They didn't want to leave the titan when the future of everyone else on it was also uncertain. But they didn't exactly get a choice in the matter.

Indol was vastly different to their original home. It was huge, and a little scary, really. The boarding school they were sent to was deeply religious, and neither of them took well to that sort of environment. Living there was miserable, and boring, and just about every other negative adjective in existence.

Mythra in particular loathed it. There hadn’t been many people living on her titan that were her age, but when she moved to Indol it became particularly noticeable to her that she...didn't like men. Which meant her soulmate was almost definitely a woman. Which was very scary in Indol. So, she avoided talking to pretty much everyone except Pyra, earning herself a reputation as cold and aloof that certainly worked in keeping any potential soulmates away from her. 

By the time she reached sixteen, she was more than ready to get out of this school. Some part of her assumed, foolishly, that their parents would come to get them, but she knew that the real likely option was that they would simply be kicked out and left to find their own ways in the world. Indol was nice like that. 

But then...something else happened. The titan went under. Her family, and everyone else on the titan because none of them had managed to get off, were declared as missing. Money stopped coming to the school, which left the school in an awkward position. They now had two students who couldn’t pay, at no fault of their own. For about a month, Mythra was stuck in her room, alone, with no one but Pyra for company. Apparently, it wasn’t fair to let them keep attending classes whilst they weren’t paying. Mythra was just glad for the time to grieve. 

And then came what she’d been expecting. They were told, in no uncertain terms, to pack their bags and leave. Pyra had asked where they were supposed to go, and the woman they’d spoken to had simply shrugged coldly, as if stranded teenagers were something she saw every day. In Indol, they probably were.

So that’s how they ended up. Stranded teenagers in Indol who had nowhere to go. Mythra felt like she should be happy she’d managed to escape the fall of the titan, and honestly their father had probably intended for that exactly to be the result of sending them to the school, but...it was a hollow victory. Everyone she loved apart from Pyra was gone, and she and Pyra might well be gone soon too if they didn't find a way off this titan. They were basically the same as all the refugees that Indol took in every day; just two more people with no place to call their home, and not even a single coin to their names. 

They ended up living amongst the other refugees in tents, surviving off what little food Indol gave out as charity. Somehow, Mythra always felt like they didn't quite deserve it, even though their situation was just as hopeless as that of everyone else here. Until recently, they’d had exactly the privileges that all the other refugees wished for every day, and they’d hated it when they had it. They’d had everything and now they had nothing, but Mythra still didn't miss it.

It was an awful situation to be in. She didn't know what to do with herself. She had interests, and ambitions, and she couldn’t pursue any of it anymore. She couldn’t do anything other than sit around and hope that maybe there was a country who would take them in. 

Pretty much the only thing of interest in the refugee camp was a cat that belonged to...someone. It did the rounds every morning, collecting scraps of food from anyone who would feed it and then vanishing off back into an alleyway. It was a very handsome cat, with white fur and a regal sort of demeanour. Mythra didn't think it was a stray, either- that white fur was always so well-brushed.

One day, though, someone had decided they’d had enough. A very large man who was very intimidating decided to shout at the cat, and then kick it, and while Mythra was horrified, she wasn’t about to risk her own safety to go and save it. Her sister, however, was apparently not that smart.

“Why would you do that?” She shouted, running over to where the cat was lying on the ground. “He’s not doing any harm. You could have just shooed him away. Poor thing…”

“Pyra!” Mythra followed her, grabbing her hand and trying to pull her away. The man scowled at them both, then spat on the ground and stalked off, still grumbling under his breath. “Pyra, you’re an idiot,” she said, more out of loving concern than actual anger. 

“I just wanted to help…” She was kneeling by the cat now, stroking its soft fur. “He’ll be okay, I think he’s just stunned. We should try and find his owner…” 

Something strange pulled in Mythra’s stomach then. “No. I’ll try and find his owner. You go and find the Indoline police and report that man for hurting the cat.” She wasn’t sure why, but she had suddenly been overcome with the feeling that she should be the one to sort this out. Like it was fate, almost. 

“I don’t think they’ll do anything, but-”

“It’s fine,” Mythra said. “I’ll find the cat’s owner. This thing looks like it might be the property of an actual citizen. They’ll pay attention to that any day.”

Pyra glanced at the cat, at Mythra, and then sighed. “Fine,” she said. “If you’re sure that you want to go out on your own and all. I know it’s not all that dangerous around here usually, but-”

“But I’m all you have left and you want to make sure I’m safe,” Mythra said with a smile. “I know, Pyra. I’ll be careful. Just...you try to be careful sometimes too, okay? That includes not challenging huge men on their treatment of animals.”

“Alright, alright.” Pyra reached out to squeeze her hand, then ran off back into the camp. Mythra bent down, scooping up the injured cat. 

“Okay, mister, where do you live…?” She looked around, spotting the alleyway that she always saw the cat slinking away down. Perhaps it led to a row of houses further down. 

Cautiously, she started down the alleyway. It was dark, but the light wasn’t completely gone. The bright marble of the normal city disappeared almost instantly once you stepped off the main streets, leaving a grey stone that looked dingy in comparison. The cat’s ears pricked up, telling Mythra that they were probably going in the right direction.

“What the hell did you do to him?” Mythra froze, and not just because the voice had surprised her. Those were some words she was extremely familiar with. They were written on the inside of her palm in a handwriting so scrawled it was hard to read. 

“What- where are you? Who are you?” She looked around wildly, only to hear a Gormotti accent mutter ‘oh, fuck’ and then to see a short, angry-looking Gormotti girl drop down from a ledge a little way in front of her. She had her hand raised, and Mythra thought for a moment that she was going to be slapped- but then she looked closer, and saw her own words written across the girl’s palm in her own handwriting. “...Oh.”

“Oh indeed,” the girl said, a very strange look on her face. “This is not what I expected.” Mythra was honestly slightly stunned. She’d never expected...she’d always theorised that she’d meet her soulmate after beating up a man. It sounded cool. Pyra, the only person she’d ever shared the mark with, had agreed.

“Me neither.” Mythra suddenly remembered why she was here, and she extended her arms, offering the cat to the girl. He suddenly sprung back to alertness, twisting out of her grip and landing elegantly on the floor to curl himself around the girl’s feet. “He got kicked by some asshole in the refugee camp I’m staying in. He seems okay, though… Oh- my name’s Mythra.” 

“Nia,” the girl said in return. “And this is Dromarch. Thank you for rescuing him, I suppose.”

“I’m- not sure where we go from here,” Mythra said. She couldn’t help but stare a little at the girl. Nia. She had short hair and she was just...genuinely really cute. She knew that Nia was meant to be her soulmate and all, but architect she was adorable. “I don’t have access to power so I can’t even give you my number.”

“I, uh, don’t really have a home to invite you back to,” Nia said. “But I guess I could come to your camp. I’ve kind of been avoiding it. The Indoline government doesn’t like me much because I keep stealing from their markets.” She grinned. “Dromarch distracts people, then I take their food. The stallholders are all stupid rich anyway, they don’t need it.”

“Classy,” Mythra said, returning the smile. She didn't exactly approve of stealing, but she understood why Nia would do it. The authorities didn't provide for animals, so without stealing, Nia would be forced to split her own rations with her cat. “If they recognise you, why don’t they just stop you?”

“That’s far easier said than done,” she said with another grin. “The Indoline police are pretty useless. They’re only good for beating up us gays, let’s be real. They don’t have any resources to deal with actual crime, or if they do they just don’t use them.”

“I suppose…” Mythra glanced back towards the refugee camp. “My sister is back there trying to report the man who kicked your cat, I should go check on her. Are you coming?” 

“Yeah. Just one thing…” Nia stood up on tiptoes, and pulled Mythra into a kiss. Mythra must have looked shocked when she pulled away, because Nia laughed at her. “Sorry. Had to make sure my soulmate is a good kisser. You’re not bad…” She winked. “Anyway, let’s go.”

“No way,” Mythra said, leaning in again and taking the initiative with this kiss. She hadn’t wanted to push for these things too quickly, but she wasn’t about to back down from a challenge like that. “You can’t judge me based on a surprise kiss.”

“Okay, that one was better.” Nia grinned. “Wanna just hang out in this alleyway for a bit, or do we still have to go find your sister?” 

“Yes, we have to go find my sister.” Mythra laughed, beckoning for Nia to follow her. Oh, she couldn’t wait to tell Pyra about this. Finally, something good to make a difference to their currently shitty lives.


	2. Encounters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex was having a bad day but it turned around pretty quickly.

Rex couldn’t believe his shitty luck. Finally, just when he’d managed to get a salvaging permit in Indol (apparently they didn't believe in salvagers being under sixteen) and managed to get himself a cylinder, someone had decided to make off with what he salvaged as soon as he looked away from it for two seconds. He’d spent a lot of time and money on this thing and he needed it. He wasn’t sure how long it would be until he got a second chance. 

The police, as he had predicted, were absolutely no help. They’d seen a skinny kid in a salvaging suit and practically laughed him off, waving him away with a dismissal of ‘better luck next time, kiddo’. Honestly. He hated being stuck on Indol. He was beginning to regret leaving Leftheria, wishing he’d at least brought more money with him.

As he was leaving, he locked eyes with another girl who was coming out of the area, looking disheartened. “You too, huh?” He asked. Her eyes widened. They were a strange colour, a colour Rex had never seen before that matched her dark red hair, and he was suddenly struck by how pretty she was.

“I- yes, I can’t believe how little they care about everyone!” Rex’s heart very nearly stopped. When he was a kid, one of the starting points for learning Indoline had been that phrase. Because it was written in elegantly looped handwriting down the inside of his right arm.

The girl lifted her own arm, showing him three words on the inside of her right arm, in his own chicken-scratch handwriting. He blinked. His soulmate was...beautiful. The most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on. She was so pretty, and she was his soulmate? 

“Uh…” He didn't even know what to say. “Hi. I’m- I’m Rex.” He felt almost like he should apologise for being such a mess, when this girl was so beautiful. 

“Maybe we should- go outside,” she said, smiling. Her smile was so bright and beautiful and argh. It was amazing. Without sparing a second thought for his stolen salvage, he followed her out into the more open square. “I’m Pyra.” She seemed a little shy, like she wasn’t used to being looked at the way Rex was looking at her. 

“Pyra. That’s...that’s a pretty name.” He lifted a hand up to scratch the back of his neck, and his salvaging gear clanked awkwardly. He really should take this off. It almost definitely wasn’t making a good first impression on Pyra. “Uh… So- why were you at the police station? Are you okay?”

“Yes, don’t worry about me,” she said with another smile. “Someone kicked a cat in the camp and I thought it might belong to a citizen so I came to report it. They told me that it was none of their business what happened in the camp because the officers can’t monitor or prosecute properly there.”

“Oh. That’s pretty bad. I was there because someone stole my salvage. I’m a salvager, if you hadn’t guessed…” 

“I had guessed.” Pyra nudged his suit. “This makes it pretty obvious.” She giggled. “Oh! I should find my sister. She went off to see whose cat it was, I hope she found his owner… And she’s definitely going to want to meet you.”

Rex blushed. He would have to write home as soon as possible. He couldn’t wait to tell everyone that he’d found his soulmate. And maybe both of them weren’t exactly in the best position in the world, but he couldn’t bring himself to be mad about it. He’d just met the most beautiful girl in existence, so a bit of lost salvage couldn’t be that bad. “I don’t mind going with you if you have to find her. I was hoping to be able to afford a room to sleep in tonight, but someone nicked my salvage, so I guess that plan’s down the drain.” 

Pyra reached out and tentatively took his hand, and Rex hoped his salvaging gloves weren’t still damp at all. “The refugee camp I was staying in is just this way.” She pulled him along with her, and Rex tried to keep a little of the stupid grin off of his face. He’d always figured his soulmate would be someone sweet and kind, based off of the mark on his arm, but he’s never pictured someone quite like Pyra.

“Are you from Indol?” He asked. She very clearly wasn’t Indoline, especially as Indoline didn't get human soulmates because of the difference in lifespan. Actually, asking if she was from Indol was a stupid question, seeing as she was staying in the refugee camp. Citizens didn't end up there.

“No,” she said. “I’m from a very small titan known as Neulan, but it went under the cloud sea earlier this year so I don’t have anywhere to go anymore.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” He wasn’t really sure how to react to that, so he squeezed her hand and offered what he hoped was a comforting smile. She smiled back, which was a good sign.

“It’s okay. Oh, hey- that’s my sister Mythra over there. I don’t know who that girl she’s with is…” She pointed over to two girls approaching them, one short and Gormotti and the other looking very much like Pyra, but with long, blonde hair instead of the red. She was pretty too, and they were so close in appearance that he was pretty sure they were twins, but Rex knew very firmly that no one could be more beautiful than Pyra. 

“Pyra!” The blonde girl called. “This is the cat’s owner. His name was Dromarch, by the way, and this is Nia, she’s- oh, uh, who’s this?” The girl was practically glowing with happiness until she’d noticed Rex, at which point she’d completely changed her demeanour to looking very guarded. There was something going on.

“Mythra, relax, it’s fine. This is Rex. He was in the police station with me, and, well- he’s my soulmate.” Pyra beamed as she said that, and Rex suddenly felt like he would do anything to see that smile again. 

“Hi,” he said, hoping that Mythra wasn’t about to shout at him. But she didn't- she just looked between the two of them, and laughed. 

“Well. As I was saying, this is Nia, she’s my soulmate. What are the chances of that?” Mythra was back to smiling, though she was still looking around uneasily. That must be pretty scary. Having a female soulmate in Indol...ouch. Rex would not want to be in that position right now.

“That’s really strange,” Pyra said. “Well, Nia, it’s nice to meet you, and I hope Dromarch is okay.”

“He’s fine. Thanks for trying to save him.” 

“It’s alright.” Pyra smiled, glancing around as if she wasn’t quite sure what to do now. Rex got the feeling she’d been alone with her sister for quite some time, and suddenly having two new people here was making things a little strange.

“This is weird,” Mythra said. “I don’t like it. Rex, you’re a boy, do something dumb so we can all make fun of you and make it slightly less strange.”

Rex flushed bright red as Pyra very quickly took hold of his hand. Her hand was warm, and they were almost the same size as his. “Mythra, don’t be like that!” She said, a slightly stern note in her voice. 

“Oh, he blushes.” Mythra grinned. “He’s pretty cute for a boy. Not bad, Pyra.” 

“He’s very cute,” Pyra said defensively, and Rex felt his face go from fire engine to literal surface of the sun. He was cute? That really wasn’t a word he’d ever thought to apply to himself before.

“Looks like a nerd,” Nia said. It was the first time she’d spoken to him since he arrived and it was to mildly insult him. Lovely. He shot a weak glare at her, without any malice, and she grinned. “Where are you from, kid?”

“Uh, I’m from Fonsett Village in the Leftherian Archipelago. Left home about a year ago, travelled around, ended up here, met-” His eyes widened. “Oh shit, I left Gramps back at the shelter I was staying at last night.” He’d meant to go back for him when the whole salvage business was sorted out, but meeting Pyra had confused things somewhat.

Pyra laughed lightly. “Who’s Gramps?” She asked. “And what’s Leftheria like? I’ve never been, but I’ve heard it’s very peaceful.”

Rex shrugged. “Not really,” he said. “Everyone is poor as dirt and no amount of valuable salvage to be found in the cloud sea makes it worth people setting up a trading route nearby. It’s too spread out to justify anything, so I decided to go somewhere else instead, but I haven’t been having all that much luck. Gramps is my cat, though, and he’s a bonus from travelling I guess.”

“Do you need to go and get him?” Pyra glanced at Mythra. “We can all go with you. It’s probably safest that way, you know.” 

“Uh, yeah, I probably should. He gets really grumpy if I don’t pay attention to him, I don’t want him wandering off.”

“It’s not dangerous over by the shelters,” Mythra said with a small scoff. “Go ahead, Pyra, go with him, you’ll be fine as a pair and Nia and I will be just fine here.” Rex was inclined to agree, because there was really nothing dangerous about Indol during the day, but he didn't particularly want Pyra to have to worry if that could be helped.

“Fine,” Pyra said after a moment. “Is this just because you two want some time to yourselves so you can kiss?” 

“None of your business,” Mythra said, although Rex could tell from her grin that Pyra had probably hit the nail on the head with that assumption. “Go on. Go find your boyfriend’s lost cat. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“I don’t think I’ll do anything you would do, either,” Pyra said, grinning back at her sister. With that, she moved on again, pulling Rex along with her. All he could do was smile. This was...amazing. More than he ever could have dreamed of.

“This probably sounds stupid, because you’re my soulmate, but I really like you,” he told her. Her hair was hiding most of her face from him, but he could see the tips of her ears turn red. “It’s kind of amazing how much I feel like I already know you, even though I know I don’t.”

“We’ll just have to get to know each other, then,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice even as she tried to hide behind her embarrassment. “And I get the feeling we have a very long time together to do that in.”


	3. Familiarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nia and Mythra get to know each other a little better.

Nia was having a hell of a day so far. Meeting her soulmate was one thing, finding out her soulmate had a twin sister who had also met her soulmate on the exact same day was quite another. And now Mythra had pulled her into a slightly ragged tent for what had started out as a lot of kissing, and ended up as lying together on a thin blanket, both stroking Dromarch as he purred happily at all the attention he was receiving. Nia was tired, and it was barely even midday.

“I never dreamed I’d meet my soulmate in this hellhole,” she said, even though she’d always known that she probably would because the mark was written in Indoline. “I thought I’d get out long beforehand.”

“I sort of hoped I wouldn’t,” Mythra said. “Indol isn’t exactly the best place to be gay.”

“Yeah… Gormott’s not too bad.” Back home, Nia had dated a few people for short amounts of time, both male and female, and no one had really given a damn either way. “No one cares who you like as long as you’re not being an asshole about it. Things got a bit tighter when Mor Ardain took over, which is when I got out of there. Don’t know how it is now…”

“It’s been okay in the last year or two, from what I’ve heard,” Mythra said. It had been a while since she’d had access to power, but people discarded newspapers all over the place and she liked to stay informed, even if it was through Indol’s horrendously biased news. “Their young emperor is growing up and he’s nicer than the old men running his country in his stead.”

“Niall? Yeah, he’s not too bad. His sister or cousin or whatever she is, the Special Inquisitor, she’s hot. Kind of an asshole, but hot.” Nia had spoken about three words to her, when Mor Ardain first took over, and she was absolutely certain that the Special Inquisitor was a lesbian.

Mythra laughed. “Not really my type,” she said. “She always seems uptight in media appearances. A bit rich and a bit stuffy. I’m sick of dealing with those kinds of people. I used to have to all the time, because I started off at school here before my home titan went under.”

“You went to school here? Gross. You have my sympathy.” 

“That’s probably the best reaction anyone’s ever had to learning about my past,” Mythra said, laughing again. “You’re not exactly what I imagined my soulmate to be like, but you’re pretty perfect anyway.”

“I imagined my soulmate as another Gormotti girl,” Nia said. “Probably taller than me, with light brown hair. But now you’re here, I don’t think I can imagine anyone better. It’s- I don’t know, I feel like we clicked really well. Soulmates are supposed to, but still.”

“I thought I’d meet my soulmate after beating up a guy,” Mythra said. “Not whilst getting yelled at because my soulmate thought I’d hurt her cat. But hey, it’s still a pretty cool soulmate mark to have.”

“Beating up a guy would be a pretty cool way to meet a soulmate, to be fair,” Nia said. “I could tell that I would end up calling something to mine and she wouldn’t see me, just because of the response. Either that or it would be night time when I met her.”

“Or she could have been blind,” Mythra mused. 

“Huh, I suppose. I never thought of that. I’m kinda glad you’re not blind, though. I’d be really bad at dealing with a blind person.” Nia was not the most patient of people, and although she tried to be nice to most people she came across, trying did not always mean succeeding.

“Do you want to go back to Gormott?” Mythra asked. “I wish I could go home sometimes, but home is now thousands of peds below the cloud sea, so there’s not much point in wishing.” She sighed, and Nia leaned over to gently kiss her cheek.

“I do want to go back, but I don’t have any money,” she said sadly. “I thought about stowing away, I even tried it once, but I got found out before we even left the port. And I can’t leave Dromarch behind. He makes stowing away so much harder…” 

“Could you apply to return?” Mythra asked. “I imagine you still have your citizenship, and your parents are Gormotti. I’m sure they’d love to take people home who belong there.” It was a good idea. Nia knew it was, and knew that she should maybe consider it. But now there was Mythra to think about, and Mythra had Pyra to think about, and Pyra had her own soulmate. It wouldn’t work.

“Not with you I couldn’t. The only way of getting back is to pay for a spot on a ship. And pay for a spot for you as well. And I guess you don’t wanna come without your sister, unless she wants to go back to Leftheria with Rex. Then again, Rex didn't seem to want to go back there, so who knows?”

“I guess it just makes it all more complicated and difficult,” Mythra said. She moved and took Nia’s hand in her own. Her hands were soft, and cooler than Nia’s. “I wouldn’t want to leave Pyra yet,” she confessed. “I know she’s not much younger than me, but she’s my little sister and I love her. Neither of us are really old enough to go off on our own yet.”

“Are any of us? We’re all sixteen, aren’t we? That’s way too young to actually do anything with our lives. And I guess the only one of us who’s actually capable of making money right now is Rex, since he has that silly salvager’s outfit.” Nia wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a piece of clothing that looked more impractical and ridiculous. 

“Different places bring kids up differently,” Mythra said with a shrug. “I don’t think a place as poor as Leftheria sends their kids to school for as long as they do here, or in Gormott. You probably only stopped because you left, right?”

Nia nodded. She’d never really liked school, but she’d felt like she’d needed to go because her sister had always wanted to be in school but hadn’t been able to make it in. “They don’t have spaces here and they don’t really care enough to enforce whatever promises they make.”

“Yeah…” Mythra looked like she might have been about to say something else when the tent flap opened, and Pyra poked her head inside. 

“We found the cat,” she said. “Gramps is adorable, you guys will love him. Rex, it’s okay, you can come inside.” Nia flushed at the implication of that. Rex might have thought he couldn’t come in because she and Mythra might have been doing something. She may have been very forward with Mythra when they met, but she wasn’t that bad.

Rex poked his head round the tent flap before making his way inside. The four of them sat in a loose circle, and after a couple of moments, a straggly little grey cat wandered in. Dromarch lifted his head, regarding the little cat with suspicion. He stopped in his tracks, as if waiting for Dromarch’s approval. Dromarch just put his head back down again, and Gramps carried on into the tent and curled up next to Rex. 

“He’s cute,” Nia commented, leaning over to stroke him. 

“Yeah. I found him on the streets here on Indol, all by himself. Felt pretty bad for him, so I gave hum half my sandwich, then he followed me home.” Nia laughed. That was such a cat thing to do.

“I think someone must have abandoned Dromarch,” Nia said. “He was very well groomed and he had a little ribbon with a bell tied around his neck, all the usual pet stuff, but there was no one looking after him.” Dromarch really was an asset and a half. Her stealing wouldn’t be nearly so effective if he wasn’t around.

“Poor guy.” Mythra gave him a scratch on the head, and the ‘poor guy’ looked up at her and started purring. “Heh...do you spoil him now, Nia? He looks pretty happy and healthy for a street cat.” 

“I don’t. He spoils himself by going around the camps and taking people’s scraps.” Honestly, her cat probably ate better than she did. Never mind. She was used to it by now. “I imagine that’s how all this happened, actually. Thanks a bunch, Dromarch.” Her cat running off and grabbing as much food as he could find had led her to her soulmate. Now, of course, her chances of going back home were much slimmer, but at least she’d found someone worth the cost.


	4. Salvaging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex and Pyra make plans for the future.

By the time evening came around, Pyra felt like she’d gotten to know Rex reasonably well. Mythra and Nia had claimed the tent for the day, so she’d led Rex off to a quiet area of Indol, and they’d sat on a wall with their legs dangling into the cloud sea, just talking for a while. She was still too shy to kiss him, although she felt like she wanted to try it soon.

“How long have you been here?” Rex asked. They’d been talking for ages, getting to know each other, and it was nice that Rex still hadn’t exhausted possible topics of conversation. “In Indol, I mean.”

“Four years,” she said. It didn't feel like that long. “I used to go home a few times a year, but it got more expensive as time went on so I didn't go as much. And now it’s gone, so I’m super stuck here.”

“That sucks. Can’t think of many less interesting places to be stuck than Indol.” Rex pulled a face. “Mor Ardain has technology, Uraya is really pretty, Gormott at least has friendly people… I guess getting stuck in all the snow on Tantal wouldn’t be great.”

“It’s not snowy in Tantal all the time,” Pyra said with a laugh. With that, Rex’s face lit up, and Pyra felt everything get infinitely better. She loved making him happy. She would be content to just talk to him forever. “People on Indol can be friendly. But I would quite like to be somewhere else at some point.” 

“Nia said she used to live on Gormott,” Rex mused. “Hey- maybe if I actually get some more salvage, we can get enough money to get out of here! I don’t have to worry about my stuff getting nicked if I have you to watch it for me!” He looked ecstatic at this realisation. Pyra gathered her courage, then leaned forwards and pressed a very brief kiss to his lips. She was still too shy for anything more.

Rex, however, flushed bright red, and that was all she needed to see. She was blushing too, but his blush was just...adorable. He rubbed the back of his head, looking slightly dazed, and his eyes didn't leave her lips. If Pyra was being honest, he wasn’t all that great at kissing, but it didn't matter. He was cute when he did it. 

“I- I think it’s a good idea,” she said, making an attempt to continue their conversation. “The whole going to Gormott thing. If you don’t mind sharing your salvage money with me, and Mythra and Nia too.” 

“I don’t,” Rex said, still staring at her. She was impressed that he could even form words right now. “It’d take a while to build it all up, of course, but I’m not a bad salvager, if I say so myself. I moved specifically so I could make a life for myself. It’s hardly a life if I’m all on my own.” He was so selfless. Pyra was so, so glad that her soulmate was someone like this. Really, she couldn’t have asked for anything better. 

“I think salvaging is pretty cool,” she said with a smile. “How do you know where the treasure is? Or do you just dive and hope?” She really didn't know anything about salvaging, except that the trade wasn’t quite as big as it used to be. 

“Well if I was moving around, I’d have a scanner and run checks on the structural integrity of stuff,” he said. “But Indol has gentle currents surrounding its path and it’s very easy to get back to it once you go diving, so generally I just run a quick ping and dive down when I’m in the right place.”

“You’ll have to show me how it works some time…” She supposed that if they were together for life, she was going to get plenty of opportunities to see Rex’s salvaging in action. Maybe he’d even let her try it out herself.

“I could show you now, if you want! This is pretty close to where I found my last lot of junk.” He leapt up, clearly eager to get moving and show her something. “I have another cylinder, I was just feeling a bit disheartened after what happened this morning. I’ll run some checks on what’s on the top layer of salvage carrying currents and I’ll try and explain it as I go.” 

“Ooh…” Pyra grinned at him, watching as he dug a small device out of his salvage suit and poked it a few times. “What’s that.” 

“It’s a waterproof scanner. Pretty basic, but it tells me if there’s anything down there, which...there is. Metal, by the looks of it. That’s promising, even if it’s scrap you can sell it to be melted down.” Pyra listened, intrigued. Rex seemed a little immature at times, but in this, it was clear that he knew exactly what he was doing.

“So do you just...go down there?” She asked. She’d never really swum in the cloud sea. It wasn’t safe enough on her titan, which had been constantly moving, and when she moved to Indol it was a bit late to learn. “You swim?”

“I have a helmet,” he said, indicating the one that was strapped upside down to his back. “And basically I sort of inflate the suit, keeping the internal pressure constant, and I breathe using the cylinder.” 

“I see.” Pyra reached out, tentatively running her hand over the material of Rex’s suit. It was rubbery, and ribbed with metal in places- it looked quite old fashioned. “And this is definitely safe to dive in?” 

“Oh, yeah.” Rex tucked his scanner away, flipping his helmet up. When he spoke again, his voice was tinny and echoed. “It’s kinda old tech, because I couldn’t afford a more modern suit. But it works. Okay- I’m gonna dive now, and I’ll bring up the salvage. If I shout at you to get outta the way, do it, I don’t wanna hit you with a grappling hook.”

And with that, he shot her a thumbs up, ran the length of the small pier they were on, and jumped off the edge with what was clearly practised ease. Pyra felt her heart flutter a little. He was like a fish out of water whenever she complimented him, but that was clearly because where he belonged was salvaging. It was amazing to watch. 

She ran to the edge of the pier, peering down into the depths of the cloud sea just in time to see his diving suit vanish beneath the white puffs of cloud. She felt a prickle of apprehension, but she ignored it- Rex would be fine, he’d done this before. It was just her own ignorance as to what lay down there that was making her worry. Five minutes passed, then six, seven, then-

“Hey! Pyra! Back off, I gotta shoot my grappling hook!” Rex’s diving helmet popped up from beneath the clouds, and as she stood up and hastily scrambled back, she had time to see that he was clinging onto a large, sodden bag. He shot his hook up into the sky, and it arced through the air before it landed, hooking around a railing. From then, there was a loud whirring sound, and the hook twitched twice before settling firmly.

It took a few seconds, but Rex made it up, quickly unhooking the cylinder from his mouthpiece before pulling back the helmet and unzipping part of his suit. “Ah…” he said, putting the bag down on the ground. “I love the smell of salvage. You can’t smell down in the cloud sea, obviously, but that’s what I think it smells like. It’s just somehow full of ancient mysteries.”

“Smells like dirty saltwater to me,” Pyra said, sniffing the bag and wrinkling her nose. “So, what did you find? Looks like quite a lot of stuff…” The bag was clearly old, but bulging at the seams, like it was about to split. “It’s kind of exciting, not knowing what’s inside.”

“Well it’s not properly sealed,” Rex said, looking at it. “So the moment I turn it upside down a whole bunch of water will come out. Some of it will have been ruined by the clouds, it always has been, but there’s definitely some metal items in there. If they aren’t rusted all the way to Elysium and back, then they’ll be worth quite something, I imagine.”

Pyra took a step back, not wanting water in her shoes. Rex grinned at her, and she motioned for him to empty out the bag. He lifted it up, and before he could even turn it over, the bag split, sending seawater and metal crashing everywhere. “Ah!” She cried, jumping backwards again. She only had two pairs of shoes and these were the ones without holes. She couldn’t let them be ruined.

 

“Sorry!” Rex called, hurrying to pick up a piece of metal that was rolling dangerously close to the edge. “I didn't know it would split with so little pressure. Oops.” Once they’d both collected themselves, though, Rex looked very excited. “There’s so much stuff in here. This was an amazing haul.”

“Some of this looks pretty expensive…” Pyra picked up what looked like a little silver jug, the sort that rich people kept milk in. It could easily be real silver; it was certainly green enough by now. “I guess we should try and carry this back inland. Where do you sell it?”

“Salvage shop usually,” he said. “Some of this might be better off at a metalworking place, though. It looks really nice. Honestly, I’d like to take a look at these before I sell them. They look like they could be really interesting.”

“You got really lucky, it seems.” She gave him the silver jug, kneeling down to sort through the pile of other items. Some of them were mostly rust, others were just a little green, and some hadn’t tarnished at all. “How much of this do we take back?” 

“Anything that doesn’t fall apart when you touch it.” Rex laughed. “You don’t mind carrying some stuff, right?”

“Of course not,” she said with a smile. “Should be fun to look through. Are you heading back to the shelter tonight, though?”

“Need money first,” he said with a shrug. “Is it okay if I sleep with- I, uh, sleep in your tent if I can’t sell anything quickly?” As he spoke, his face flushed right up to his ears and she laughed. He was adorable.

“That’s fine, Rex.” Pyra started scooping up metal into her arms, stacking smaller items in bigger items to make them easier to carry. Rex was doing a similar thing, except he was also tossing small items back into his helmet, somehow managing to land them inside perfectly every time. She could watch him doing that for ages, she thought with a smile.

“I’m so glad I met you,” Rex said, his smile huge. “It’s just...things weren’t looking so optimistic. And then there you were.”

“I’m glad too,” she said. Finally, there was a light at the end of all this sadness she’d been through.


	5. Profit

Of all the things Mythra was expecting to see when Pyra and Rex returned from wherever they’d wandered off to, both of them with their arms absolutely full of smelly scrap metal was not one of them. They’d dumped their armfuls on the ground, narrowly avoiding Gramps and Dromarch, and both flopped down, looking exhausted.

“What’s all this, then? You’ve not suddenly turned into thieves, have you?” Pyra wasn’t the type to steal. She’d probably object to stealing, actually, even in Nia’s case, but she definitely wouldn’t go off stealing things. If Rex had persuaded her to do it, he was probably a bad influence.

“No!” Pyra said. “This is salvage. Because Rex is a salvager. As you know. He was showing me what he does and he found quite a lot of things.”

“I see.” Mythra prodded a copper pot, and some seawater leaked out. “Is this stuff actually worth anything? It looks a lot like a load of rubbish to me.” 

“Yeah! We just need to polish it up a bit, and then I can sell it. Me an’ Pyra thought perhaps I could salvage us enough money to get us out of here. Maybe back to Gormott. It’s nice there and the salvaging trade isn’t that bad.”

Huh. That was interesting. Both of them had come to the same potential conclusion separately, except Rex actually had a method of earning money that would mean it could work for them, even though it would probably take time. “I think it could work,” Pyra said. “Rex is really good at salvaging.”

“Nia and I were thinking something similar,” Mythra said. “Except we never figured out a way of making money. So what you two have come up with should be perfect.” She glanced over at Nia. “What do you think?”

“Could work out,” Nia said with a shrug. She looked nonchalant, but Mythra could somehow tell that she was actually very excited. They’d found a way to potentially get out of here. “You’d only have to raise enough money for three,” she said. “I can apply to return because I was born there.”

“Well, that makes things easier.” Rex dug a cloth out of his salvaging suit, and starting rubbing the dirt and grime off of a silver pot. Mythra had to admire his straightforwardness, even if he could be a little childish at times. “With the money from all this, I might already be able to afford one ticket. Or most of a ticket, at least.”

“Well you have to buy air and stuff, don’t you?” Mythra asked. “If it was so easy to make money from salvaging, everyone would do it.”

“Everyone does it on Leftheria,” Rex said with a shrug. “And plenty do in Argentum, too. If I could get a proper Guild trade licence, I could get free passage to Gormott on an Argentum vessel, but that’d involve getting passage there in the first place and passing a bunch of tests and stuff. It’d be more expensive than just getting a ticket.”

“Huh.” Mythra wouldn’t claim to be an expert on salvaging, far from it in fact. Pretty much her only knowledge on it came from maybe five minutes of talk on it during a careers lesson in school a couple of years ago. And even then, that was mostly just to talk about how much of a bad job it was to have. “Is it a safe way to earn money?”

“I guess,” Rex said with a shrug. “Sure, it’s possible I could salvage up a monster or two. But that’s really rare around Indol in the first place and I like to think I’m good enough to avoid bringing those things up. I don’t just cast a net down and hope for the best, I actually dive down and grab things.”

“There are monsters down there?” Pyra looked at Rex, wide-eyed. “What if they get you whilst you’re diving?” 

“Nah, it’s fine,” Rex insisted. “I can get ‘em to back off.” Mythra wasn’t convinced that any monster would be scared of Rex, but she kept her mouth shut anyway. “They just want to be left alone, and most of them don’t care for all the salvage down there. Just gets in the way.”

“I don’t think any monster would be scared of you,” Nia said with a short laugh. “You probably just look like a big, awkward fish down there. Or maybe an an Upa if you’ve got a light on.” Mythra giggled at the image.

“Well, I haven’t been eaten by a monster yet,” Rex said indignantly. “And I don’t intend to be eaten any time soon. Especially not now.” He shot a glance at Pyra, and Mythra saw them both blush. That was sort of cute. She wasn’t that hopeless with Nia, she hoped. They looked a little bit silly.

“Gross,” Mythra said, shooting a fond smile at Pyra as she spoke. “But thanks for offering, Rex. It’s really sweet of you to help us with this. It’s your hard earned money, so you know, if there’s stuff we can do to help then I’m glad to. Not like there’s anything else to do around here.”

“You can help me clean some pots.” Rex dug more cloths out of his pockets. Mythra wondered just how much stuff he had crammed in there. A little reluctantly, she took a damp cloth and a copper jug, and started scrubbing the greenness off the surface. “And you can help me carry all this stuff to the shop later.”

Okay, she’d admit that manual labour hadn’t been what she’d had in mind when she’d offered to help Rex. But that was okay, she supposed. Hopefully, doing this stuff got her one step closer to getting out of this hellhole faster. Getting somewhere where she could be out in the open with Nia just like Rex and Pyra could be out in the open whenever they wanted. One day she could hopefully say goodbye to white marble hiding the poverty of this forsaken titan and move on to green hills and a town where people were friendly. All of that would be nice.

For a while, the four of them sat in silence, cleaning dirty metal pots and jugs. At one point, Rex found a little silver ring hiding in one of the pots, and made a fool of himself blushing red as a tomato whilst giving it to Pyra as a present. Other than that, though, it was easiest to just keep quiet and get on with the work. Mythra found that she actually quite liked having something to do with her hands, even if it made them smell like metal. 

When they were done, they set the haul out in front of them. “This stuff is fairly standard,” Rex said, indicating a few duller metal items. “It’s a shame about this thing here, it’s clearly a combination of metal and wood, but the wood has completely rotted so the fittings are all we have left. I’m gonna take a knife to it in a bit and cut the wood away and see if I can do anything with it, though.

“This stuff is better,” he said, pointing at a couple of small pots and jugs that were scattered around the tent floor. “It’s very normal and won’t fetch that much money, but the age of it and the good condition means it’s worth a bit more than just standard crockery.”

“So you’ve done pretty well, by the looks of things.” Mythra prodded a couple of the shinier metal pots. One of them even had a row of fake gemstones around the edge, although a couple were missing. “Right, where do we take all of this stuff to sell it?” She wasn’t much looking forward to dragging armfuls of metal across Indol, but at least it would be worth it in the end.

“Down to the market,” Rex said. “But the best piece, we’ll have to take to a tech shop instead of a salvage shop. This thing here seems to be a functioning measuring device. I’m not sure exactly what it measures, but this hand here is measuring time, and if you look at the date thing, it’s only three days out. It’s made of metal and measures at least six other things. I imagine one of them is pressure, this one looks like temperature, but I don’t have a clue what it’s actually for. But it’s really cool.”

“Neat.” Nia picked the device up, rattling it gently and holding it to her ear. “There’s something inside that sounds like it’s buzzing, but it can’t be electronic, right?” 

“Nah, the water would have broken it. So I guess it’s something way older. Mechanical.” Rex took it back, and Mythra leaned over to have a look. 

“We’re going to have to make sure no one steals that piece,” she said. “Maybe you could deal with that one first.”

“I sorta want to keep it,” Rex said, “but it’s no use to me. I wanna take it to a couple places, though, get some different opinions on what it is, what it does, and what it’s worth. But at the same time I need to be careful, yeah.”

“We won’t let anyone steal it,” Pyra assured him, resting her hand on his. They were kind of adorable, Mythra thought to herself. Both too shy to take their new relationship too quickly, even though as soulmates they had every right to do so. She glanced at Nia, who was already watching her, and a smile twitched at the corner of her lips. 

Nia was quieter when there were others around. Maybe it was a nervousness about being safe to express her feelings around people who couldn’t truly empathise. Maybe she was shy, secretly, but didn't feel that way around Mythra. Mythra couldn’t really tell, honestly. Nia was difficult to read. She was closed off, and hiding things, and Mythra couldn’t blame her too much. This was a new and strange situation to be in. 

Whilst Rex and Pyra were distracted, poring over Rex’s more interesting finds, Mythra scooted a little closer to Nia and took her hand. “It’s been a pretty busy day, hasn’t it?” She kept her voice low, and neither of the other two looked up to pay them any attention.

“Yeah,” Nia said, running her thumb over Mythra’s fingers gently. “I think it’s still sinking in. You, I mean. And everything else. It’s happening very quickly, after years of me sitting around and waiting for something to happen. I guess I must have been waiting for you without realising.”

“Yeah… I don’t know what you’d call it. Fate, or destiny, or something, I guess. Pyra was going to be the one to go find you and give Dromarch back to you, but I just...got this feeling, like it absolutely had to be me who went and found his owner.” Mythra smiled slightly. “I still don’t really know how this whole soulmate thing works out so perfectly for everyone. The universe is weird.” 

“It is,” Nia said. “I didn't get feelings like that. I don’t know, it just happened. I don’t mind that it happened, of course, I’m happy, but I’m also sort of scared. I don’t want to be here with you, I want to be somewhere else with you. Somewhere safe for both of us, together.”

“Yeah… Well, maybe the universe is sorting that out for us, too.” She motioned over to Rex and Pyra. “Maybe in a couple of weeks we’ll be on a ship back to Gormott, and everything will be fine.”

 

“Or maybe we’ll be arrested and thrown in jail,” Nia said, less optimistically. Trying to cheer her up, Mythra leaned over and kissed Nia on the cheek. Rex and Pyra were still caught up in their own world and didn't even look over.

“I don’t think we’re old enough to be convicted,” she said. Honestly, they might have different laws about this. They seemed to basically make up their own laws when it came to the refugees, stuck here with nowhere to go. But it wasn’t like putting them in prison actually achieved anything, because they were already basically imprisoned here. “But it’s worth staying safe.”

“Yeah.” Nia rested her head on Mythra’s shoulder. “I like you, but I’d rather not go to jail for you. We’ll just have to keep things private for a bit.” She yawned, and Mythra caught a glimpse of several very sharp teeth in her mouth. She’d hate to be the soldier that tried to arrest Nia.


	6. Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex sells his salvage and thinks about plans for the future.

Rex tried not to drag his feet as he went to the third shop in a row. He knew that this device was worth more than these people were willing to give him. They thought that because he was just a kid, they could undercut his prices and give him basically nothing for something that was worth far more. Just because it wasn’t an item they recognised didn't mean it wasn’t worth very much.

He clunked his device down on the countertop of the third shop, peering over at the bored-looking Indoline woman behind the counter. “Uh, ‘scuse me, I salvaged something up you might be interested in. I know it’s worth a fair bit of money, so don’t go telling me it’s not.” 

The bored-looking woman perked up a little on seeing the device. “This looks interesting,” she said. “Do you have any information on what it is? Might take a lot longer to value if you don’t.”

“Well I fished it out of the cloud sea, so it’s mechanical rather than electronic,” he said. “It measures the date, but it’s a little bit out, probably because things have changed with the calendar and stuff since it was made. And it measures six other things, one of them looks to be temperature.”

“I see…” She took it off the counter, turning it over in her hands, and Rex suppressed a grin. Finally, someone who might actually pay him a decent amount for his find. “This sort of thing would do best in a museum, kid. But if you’d rather have the money, I can give you five thousand G for it now.”

Rex’s face lit up. That was more than double what anyone else had offered him, and he doubted he would get more for it anywhere else. Perhaps his mysterious device was worth way more than that, but he really couldn’t be bothered to find out right now. “That sounds great, thank you, ma’am.” Five thousand G was probably what the entire rest of his haul would sell for, combined, and only then if he was lucky.

He left the shop practically skipping, grinning at Pyra as he went. He just needed to make sure that he kept all of this money safe so he could use it to buy the tickets. After selling this haul he’d definitely have enough to put aside for one ticket, even after buying a few more cylinders. That was an amazing find, way better than anything he normally got out of a bog standard cylinder. Luck really was on his side today. 

“What did you get?” He showed her the money, and she gave him the sort of smile that made him think that the sun wasn’t entirely necessary after all. “Rex, that’s so much money! I think Mythra and Nia are still arguing with the guy inside that salvage shop, so you might wanna go help them out.” Rex had split his salvage between the four of them, and told everyone to go find a different shop to sell to. In his experience, people paid more if they could actually take time to look at the individual items you were selling them. 

Overall, selling that day was successful. Rex went ahead and bought a couple of silver cylinders so he could go a bit further the next time and grab some more stuff. He wasn’t expecting something quite so good this time, but now he’d managed to get started he imagined that the ball would just keep rolling until he had enough. That was how salvaging usually went; the hardest part was getting started. Now he just had to keep going. If Pyra was going to look so happy every time he salvaged something and made some money, well, that was just going to make it even easier. 

As for the money they’d made, Rex split that between the four of them, too. If someone got pickpocketed, this way they wouldn’t lose everything. Besides, it was pretty cute seeing the solemnity with which Pyra folded up her quarter of the money and tucked it safely into a pocket. She was amazing.

“Is there space for four in the tent?” Rex asked. Pyra thought for a moment and shook her head sadly.

“You could head for some cheap board for the night,” she suggested. “It’s your money, so obviously you can spend it on what you need. You need to eat, too.”

“I don’t sleep in the camp,” Nia said. “The tent should be big enough for three, seeing as Rex is basically a twig.” Rex gently pushed Nia in the arm, ignoring Mythra’s glare and just grinning at all of them.

“Where do you sleep?” Rex couldn’t help but be curious.

“Away from the camp,” she said mysteriously. “It’s a little shelter I built down a side street, if you must know. I promise I’m not going to run away forever with your money.”

“I trust you,” Pyra said, and that was enough for him, because he’d trust Pyra’s judgement any day. “Because Mythra trusts you. I mean, I imagine she does. It would be a bit odd if she didn't.”

“I trust Nia,” Mythra said, looking over at her with a smile on her face. “I’m not sure I want to be in the same tent as you two, but it should be okay as long as you don’t get too handsy.” Rex could feel himself blushing at the allusion.

“I- I’m not gonna- I won’t...do anything with Pyra, I promise,” he said, lifting his hands defensively. Mythra looked like she’d probably killed boys bigger than him when she was ten years old, and he definitely didn't want to offend her. Not at all.

All three of the others laughed, and Rex felt like he was being teased. “You’re being so mean to him!” Pyra said, putting an arm round his shoulder. He blushed even more. “Don’t worry about them, Rex. You’re welcome with us any time. I know that you won’t be a bad guest, if you can call sharing a refugee tent being a guest.”

“Don’t worry, I’m just teasing you,” Mythra said, nudging him in the ribs. It hurt. He tried not to wince. “It’s getting pretty late, we should head back to the tent before some asshole tries to rob it. Not that there’s much in there except a couple of blankets.”

“Good idea,” Pyra said, steering Rex down a different street. Architect, he knew he didn't actually explore much, but it was kind of shameful how many routes around the city he just didn't know. “Have to get an early night if we want to hit the ground running tomorrow, after all.”

“Yeah. I can dive for salvage maybe five times in one day before the pressure starts messing with my head, and I’ll wanna take a break in between those. Maybe two of those dives will actually bring up something worth selling? I got really, really lucky today.” The first time he’d been salvaging, he’d been down into the cloud sea six times in a day, and he’d had a nosebleed for the next three hours. He didn't want to risk anything worse than that.

“I don’t want you risking anything,” Pyra said gently. “You shouldn’t hurt yourself just because you want to get this done as soon as possible. We’ve survived so far, and while doing things faster will be good, making sure you’re safe is far more important.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Pyra was so concerned for him after only one day of knowing each other. Rex understood, though. He wasn’t sure there was anything he wouldn’t do if Pyra asked him to. 

After walking through a few more streets, Nia stopped, looking around the group. “This is where I need to go, so I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

“I’m, uh, going to go with her for a moment,” Mythra said. She smiled nervously at Pyra, who looked knowingly back.

“See you in a bit,” Pyra said, and Rex watched the pair head down a different street. “I don’t think she wanted to say goodnight out here on an open street,” she said. “I know you have to be safe and I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s the last thing I want. But also...I’m worried about the two of them. And what might happen if we’re stuck here too long.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” Rex promised. “I’ll make sure I get the best salvage possible, and I won’t settle for them not paying me enough for it. I promise I won’t let you or Mythra or Nia be stuck here for much longer.” He squeezed her hand tight, wishing there was more he could do to make her feel better. He would do anything for her and her sister. Making her happy and giving them a proper future together...that was the most important thing right now. He was surprised that his goals had changed so quickly, but they had so much more meaning now Pyra was in his life. Getting money to help more than himself was a challenge, but he wouldn’t change it for anything.


	7. Privacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mythra walks Nia home.

Nia didn't much like people knowing where she slept, but if there was anyone she could trust with that information, it had to be her soulmate. Right? She was still a little apprehensive, but she forced herself not to stop and insist that Mythra said goodnight to her now. There was nothing awful about opening up a little to her soulmate.

They wandered down the dark street in silence. They were close together, but not touching. They couldn’t hold hands in case someone crossing a street somewhere saw, or if someone looked out of a window, even if all the ones along here were boarded up. Being this paranoid was awful, and Nia didn't like it, but she felt like neither of them had a choice. They had to stay safe.

Reaching the end of an alleyway, Nia pushed aside a plank of wood, revealing a gap in the wall. Beyond the gap was a small shelter she’d made for herself, with blankets, a little food, and even a battery-powered lamp. She ducked inside, looking up at Mythra expectantly but also a little anxiously.

“Oh, inside an abandoned house,” she said with a smile. “It’s a real place.” She seemed to be stumbling over her words a tad. Probably because this really wasn’t anything impressive, but it meant a lot to Nia, and Mythra could probably see that. “Much better than a tent, surrounded by people.”

“Yeah. I like my privacy.” She liked it so much that having Mythra here was still making her tense. She reached up, grabbing her hand and pulling Mythra properly into the shelter. “I’m not used to having other people here. You’re the first one in- well, ever, I think. It’s always just been me and Dromarch.”

“Do you ever go into the rest of the house?” She asked, and Nia shook her head.

“It’s mostly collapsed,” she said, but she’d admit she didn't know why. Maybe there’d been a tremor, or the previous residents had been evicted very violently, or maybe it had just been destroyed a long time ago but no one could be bothered to do any more with it. “I don’t need any more, anyway. I don’t have any power to light it or anything, and this place being small means it’s easier to hide.”

“Fair enough.” Mythra sat down on the makeshift bed, and Nia sat with her. This little space was a mess, but she wasn’t overly bothered. Mythra probably hadn’t been expecting tidy perfection from her. “How long have you lived here?”

“Pretty much since I got here two years ago,” she said. On her own with no one to look after her, she hadn’t wanted to sit in the refugee camp with everyone else. People were still suffering so much after the war. It had ended years before she’d been forced to leave, but people were still entering Indol from Gormott in streams. It wasn’t a friendly environment. 

“Quite a while, then.” Mythra sighed. “I guess I shouldn’t spend too much time in here with you. Pyra’s going to be wondering what we’re doing in here.” Nia laughed. 

“I could give her something to really wonder about, but you’re right, you should probably get back.” She reached up to pull Mythra into a kiss. 

It was soft, and very different to the kisses they’d had a chance to steal before. Here, they were completely hidden from sight. They didn’t have to worry about kissing for too long, or too deeply, though Nia made sure to be as quiet as possible. This time, it was just her and Mythra, and it was nice. Really nice.

When Mythra pulled away from her, she looked almost a little dazed, but in a happy sort of way. Nia liked that look on her. If only she could convince Mythra to hang around a while longer. She knew that wasn’t possible, though. “Go on,” she said. “You’d better go now, before I decide I need to kiss you again.” 

“I think I’m okay with that,” Mythra said with a soft smile, and she leaned in this time, catching Nia’s lips against her own. “I don’t think Pyra will worry. She’d probably understand.” Honestly, Nia didn’t mind that Pyra may potentially think they were getting up to something a little more than just kissing. They probably would, at some point. Maybe tonight, maybe not. Nia still didn't feel quite safe being with Mythra on Indol, so perhaps that sort of thing would have to wait. Besides, for all Mythra’s boldness with kissing, Nia would be willing to bet that she had never actually done anything with a girl before.

“What if we did have sex?” She asked. Honestly, Mythra was confident now, but Nia wanted to see her blushing. “Do you know what to do?”

 

“I can use my imagination,” Mythra said, rolling her eyes. “I know how bodies work. I’m a teenager, not a shrivelled grape.”

“But you’ve never actually done it?” Nia grinned at her. “Don’t worry, I don’t mind. I’m just teasing you. You have a cute blush.” 

“I’m not blushing!” Mythra’s hand flew up to her cheek anyway to check, and Nia laughed. “You’re mean. I’m just a helpless lesbian, Nia, cut me some slack.”

“Does that mean I’m a helpful lesbian?” She asked, leaning in closer to Mythra. Architect her soulmate was really, really cute when she was flustered.

“You said you were bi.” Mythra poked her on the nose, looking sulky for about half a second, then she leaned in for a kiss anyway. Nia wondered if it was possible to be in love after half a day. Mythra was amazing. 

“Doesn’t really matter anymore,” Nia said. “You’re here now, and that’s all that matters. Anyone else I may have dated or been attracted to really pales in comparison, you know?” Mythra blushed even deeper this time. She was honestly stunningly cute.

“No one has made me blush in years,” Mythra said, clearly trying to sound grumpy about it and failing adorably. “How come you’re so good at it? Not fair.” 

“It’s almost as if we’re meant to be,” Nia said with a wink. Winding Mythra up was really fun, but in a friendly way rather than just liking to piss people off. “I’m specifically destined to wind you up as much as possible.”

“Well, surely the opposite must be true as well? Why are you so hard to wind up?” 

 

“I’m too mysterious,” Nia said smugly. Mythra would probably be able to find some things to tease her about pretty easily if she tried, but until then, she was happy to keep being smug. 

“You’re mysteriously fluffy and small,” Mythra said, returning the smug look and leaning in to kiss Nia’s forehead. “And I should probably be heading off at some point, even though I just...I wish I could sit here with you forever and not worry about having to get out.”

“I’m not that small!” Nia swatted Mythra’s arm, giving an indignant huff. If she was looking for things to tease about, she had definitely found one there. “Go on, go. Come back when you’re prepared to admit how not-small I am.” 

“Goodnight, Nia,” Mythra said, a warm smile on her face. Nia just had to lean in and kiss her one last time before her newly found soulmate disappeared out into the darkness. Nia was left alone, smiling to herself into the night. She really felt lucky.


	8. Happiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyra wakes up next to Rex for the first time.

Pyra woke up the next day with her arms loosely draped around Rex as he slept. She’d fallen asleep before Mythra had returned, but her sister had pulled the tent entrance closed badly like usual, so she was woken by a small gap of sunlight streaming into the tent directly into her eyes. Squinting at it and gently cursing it, she tried to shift so her face wasn’t in the sun anymore before realising she wouldn’t be able to do that without waking Rex.

Glancing over, she could see that Rex was already starting to stir, probably because she’d moved a little. Oops. She figured she may as well wake him up the rest of the way, so she shifted her face out of the sun and lay down a little more comfortably. As she turned away, she saw Mythra lying on the other side of the tent, her eyes scrunched closed.

“Moooorning,” Rex said sleepily, a smile creeping onto his face the moment Pyra turned round to face him. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Yeah,” she murmured back. “We should keep it down, Mythra’s still asleep.” She nodded her head over to the other side of the tent, just in time to hear stirring and then a grumpy sort of ‘ughhh’ noise. “Uh...maybe she’s not asleep anymore. Oops.” 

“Thanks for waking me up, lovebirds,” Mythra said, rubbing her eyes. She could be kind of mean when she was still sleepy, so Pyra made sure to nudge Rex and shush him before he could put his foot in his mouth.

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “You left the tent curtain open so I woke up. What time did you even get back last night?”

Mythra sighed, sitting up and giving her a glare that was more sleepy than angry. “None of your business.” There were shadows on her eyes and, when Pyra looked at the tent ground, there was a little blood on Mythra’s pillow.

“Mythra, is everything okay?” She asked. Something must have happened last night. “Did someone spot you and Nia?”

“What? Oh...no, I just wasn’t looking where I was going and someone bumped into me.” She touched her forehead, and Pyra noticed a small cut there, just by her hairline. It didn't look too bad, but still…

“Are you sure you’re okay?” If she wasn’t, she’d need to go and get medical attention, and that could be expensive. Mostly she was worried that Mythra did need help, but was refusing to admit it.

“I’m sure,” she said. “I’ll let you know if I feel woozy or it starts hurting again. It really didn’t bleed much last night either, which is nice for a head wound.”

Pyra leaned over, studying the small cut. Presumably Mythra had fallen over in one of the areas of smooth marble everything, because there wasn’t a hint of dirt in the wound. She’d been lucky. “Do I want to know why you weren’t looking where you were going? That seems kinda unlike you…” 

“Just thinking,” Mythra said, a small smile straying onto her face. Thinking about Nia, then. Pyra knew the feelings she was having well enough. “I knew my way back and there’s never anyone around in the back alleys. I was surprised to find someone when I got back onto the main streets.”

“I have a bandage in my salvage bag if you need it,” Rex piped up. In her concern for Mythra, Pyra had managed to almost forget he was there. She turned back, flashing him a smile. He was so kind-hearted, it was sweet. 

“It’s okay,” she said. “Doesn’t really hurt that much anymore either, it was just hard to get to sleep last night.” She wandered over to the tent entrance, opening it up to let the light and the cool morning air in a little. 

“Speaking of salvage, when are you gonna start diving today?” Pyra looked at Rex, shifting back to lean against his shoulder. 

“Uhm, as early as possible.” Rex leaned out of the tent entrance to check the sun. “Probably really soon.” 

“Make sure to eat first,” she reminded him. “You’re not allowed to eat at the refugee camp so you should probably go for a bit. Do you want to meet up somewhere later?”

“Sure!” He said with a cheerful grin. “Is forty minutes, out by the east dock okay?”

“Should be.” Pyra looked over at Mythra. “Will you come, too? You can bring Nia, if she doesn’t mind getting a bit wet.”

“She’s Gormotti, they act like cats, she’ll definitely mind getting wet,” Mythra pointed out. “But I’ll bring her along anyway. She can hold Dromarch and Gramps and stand twenty feet away. Why would she get wet if we’re on the dock?”

“The titan is close to the sea at this time of day because the level and density is higher when we’re closer to the archipelago,” Rex explained. “The ships pulling in and moving close to the sea means there can be splashes.”

“Also, Rex burst a bag of salvage on me yesterday,” Pyra pointed out. “That got pretty wet.” 

“I didn't mean to,” Rex said, pouting in a way that was really quite adorable. “I didn't think the bag would split.” Pyra just smiled at him and kissed him on the nose. He continued pouting, but he was clearly trying to hide a smile.

“You two are gross,” Mythra said.

“You and Nia aren’t much better,” Pyra retorted. Rex laughed, getting to his feet to go find some food. Pyra smiled as he left, lifting a hand in a sort of shy wave. Why she felt shy around her own soulmate, she didn't quite know. He was so lovely and she knew he’d never laugh at her in a mean spirited way, but she was still shy.

“Maybe, but we don’t do it in front of you,” Mythra said, sticking her tongue out. “I don’t really mind, if I’m being honest. But you know. Anything to tease you.”

“What a lovely sister you are.” Pyra didn't mind the teasing. She knew Mythra loved her, and she loved Mythra. For a long while, they’d been all that each other had, and even the crazy coincidence of them both finding their soulmates at once wasn’t going to change that.


	9. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mythra goes to fetch Nia.

Once she’d queued up for some breakfast, Mythra went to fetch Nia from where she was sleeping. She didn’t exactly know if that was what Nia wanted her to do, but she wanted to see her soulmate again and she didn’t want to just have to wait for Nia to find her wherever in Indol Rex decided to drag them today.

She ran into Dromarch outside, prowling around. He seemed to recognise her, and came up to ask to be stroked. Mythra obliged happily, stepping into Nia’s hideaway with the cat still curling himself around her legs. “Who’s there- oh, morning Mythra,” Nia said. She kissed Mythra quickly before leaning down to scoop Dromarch off the ground. “He likes you.”

“I’m glad,” she said with a smile. “He’s very pretty. How do you manage to get him so clean when you’re living all the way out here? It’s not like he sits inside all day.”

“He keeps himself clean, mostly.” Nia shrugged. “I have a brush in here for him, and he lets me brush him every so often, but I think mostly he just doesn’t like getting dirty. Do you?” She addressed that last part to Dromarch, who just purred. 

“Rex is going out by the east dock today to start off with,” Mythra said. “Do you want to come and, I don’t know, help out or something? You don’t have to swim, just help with what gets hauled up. And you can say no.”

Nia hesitated. “...If you’re going, I suppose I’d better be there too. If I get wet, though, I swear I’m pushing that salvager boy into the cloud sea.” Mythra laughed. Nia really was so much like a cat. It was really kind of adorable. 

“I think that’s his aim,” she said with a laugh. “He wants to go in the cloud sea.”

“Shush, you,” Nia said, shoving her lightly in the arm. “You’re my soulmate! You’re meant to blindly agree with me even if I’m wrong, obviously.”

“Maybe in public,” Mythra said, smiling a wide and very exaggerated smile at her. “But in private, I’m free to make fun of you as much as I want.”

“Maybe I’ll push you into the cloud sea too,” Nia grumbled, not actually sounding terribly grumpy. Mythra just laughed, leading her out of her little shelter and onto the streets. 

“We have maybe ten minutes before we actually have to be there, so I guess we should probably start walking.” She desperately wanted to take Nia’s hand in hers so they could walk down the streets as a couple, but she knew they couldn’t. Not here. Never here, where they could get kicked out almost immediately. They’d be arrested, maybe, and they’d never see each other again, perhaps.

“Give it a month or two, and we’ll be able to subject the world to as much awkward PDA as we want,” Nia said, keeping her voice low. It was like she’d read Mythra’s mind, or perhaps Mythra was just easy to read. 

“I know,” she said with a small sigh. She just wanted it to be now. She wanted to live somewhere that, while maybe their relationship was looked down on as strange, at least it was legal. At least they’d be allowed to. They would be able to walk together in streets that weren’t paved with marble, but most importantly they’d be together. “Tell me about Gormott. How it was for you, that is.”

Nia frowned, clearly thinking. “Gormott was...nice. Lot more homey than this dump of a place. The people were friendly, and there was always food, even when Mor Ardain would come and take most of our harvest. We always managed to get by. It was good…” 

“Sounds good,” Mythra said. “So it was better than here, even when the war was still on?”

Nia nodded. “Here is just cold. And people are suffering all the time. Maybe I have a skewed perspective of it, because Torigoth was mostly left alone, but we weren’t suffering during the war. There were shortages, and it was scary, but I didn’t know anyone who was killed. We were just shut up in a blockade.”

“Still sounds better than here.” They were nearing the docks, and Mythra spotted Pyra waving at them. Rex was there too, back in his salvager’s suit, now complete with a helmet that completely eclipsed his head from view. 

“It was,” she said. “I’d hope it’s even better now. Now some of the scars from the war have had time to heal. I’ve heard that the burn marks from the razing of the previous capital are gone now.”

Mythra waved back at Pyra and the pair of them lapsed into silence as they approached the edge of the dock. “You took your time,” Pyra said with a slightly knowing smile. “Good morning, Nia.”

“Morning.” Nia looked at Rex, and laughed. Mythra could see why. The salvager suit looked to be perhaps a size too big for him, so you could barely even see his eyes through the tinted mask on the front. 

“Oi!” Rex said, crossing his arms and striking a pose that was woefully exaggerated. He just succeeded in making himself look even more ridiculous, which just made Nia laugh at him more, nearly doubling over with laughter. “This cost a lot of money and I’ll grow into it!”

“You haven’t even finished growing yet?” Nia had tears in her eyes, and her mirth was making Mythra giggle a little too, even though she saw Pyra give her a slightly reproachful look. She couldn’t help it- this was funny. 

“I’m fifteen, thank you very much,” he said, puffing out his chest a little and renewing Nia’s giggles. “That’s plenty of time to do more growing. I’m just small at the moment because I don’t have the money to eat properly all the time.”

“You look fine, Rex. I like you as you are.” Pyra was quick to come to his defence, and Mythra saw him blush even under the helmet. “Anyway, without you, neither of those two would have any way of getting to Gormott, so don’t listen to them.”

“I could go,” Nia said. “I could apply to return. They’ll take me.” Mythra felt a spark of concern for a moment, but then Nia looked at her and it went away. She was just leaving the other half of her sentiments unsaid in public. It was okay.

“I’m going to dive down now,” Rex announced. “You guys can watch, but if I yell for you to stand back, do it or you might get a grappling hook in your face. Pyra knows what to do.” She shot him a fond look at that. They were sweet in a naive sort of way, Mythra thought to herself. 

The three of them watched him go as he took a running leap, managing a somersault before he even hit the surface of the cloud sea. “Show off,” Nia said with a grin. “Can’t deny that he has at least a bit of skill, though.”

“He has a lot of skill,” Pyra said, predictably. 

“So…how long will he be down there?” Mythra wandered to the edge of the pier, kneeling down and gazing into the cloud sea. The hole in the clouds that Rex had gone through had closed up again, leaving her no way of seeing him. 

“It could be any amount of time,” she said. “He said that he was going for a small cylinder to warm up, so he won’t be too long, but he could still be quite a while.”

“Guess it depends on when he finds something,” Nia said, stretching her arms and sitting down on the pier. “Not like there’s much we can do now he’s gone down there.”

A few minutes passed, and Mythra has resorted to resting her head against Nia’s shoulder whilst Pyra paced up and down, looking slightly anxious. Mythra had to admit, she was glad her soulmate didn't have a dangerous profession like salvaging. It would be constantly worrying, to say the least, and she hated the thought of only being able to wait while Nia did something where she could get herself killed.

Eventually, they heard a shout, and they scrambled out of the way in time to see Rex’s grappling hook shoot up over the side of the pier for him to haul himself up. There was a scary moment where the railing creaked as things settled, but it remained in place and Rex ended up on the pier with a small box within a couple of minutes.

“Ugh, you’re soaked,” Nia remarked, hanging well back just as Mythra had known she would. Pyra, on the other hand, wasted no time in approaching Rex to make sure he was okay and find out what was in the box. 

“Well, it is the sea,” he said with a grin, releasing the pressure from the suit and causing water to gush all over the floor. He lifted the helmet off and put it gently on the floor before squatting next to the box. “Doesn’t look like anything special,” he admitted.

“Never mind,” Pyra said gently. She crouched down next to Rex, and even Mythra couldn’t resist stepping closer to see what the mysterious box contained. Only Nia still hung well back, looking faintly disgusted at the fact that there was water so close to her. 

“Mostly just old junk,” Rex said with a sigh, opening the box up to show a few misshapen wooden objects and what looked to be a few coins. “There was probably more in here in the past, but it’s long gone. Sometimes salvagers just put stuff back if it isn’t worth much, but we could probably get a bit of gold for these coins. Not much, though.”

“That’s still better than nothing,” Pyra said encouragingly. Mythra had to admire her insistence on optimism- that was one thing she’d always been the best at out of the two of them. “When do you think you’ll be ready to dive again?” 

“Maybe half an hour or so,” he said with a shrug. “Just to balance all the pressures out and give my muscles a break, you know. I’m going to try from a different pier, though, so we could move over there?”

“Anywhere away from all this water,” Nia interjected, rather predictably. Mythra laughed at her, going over to rest a hand on her arm. In public, that was just about as much affection as she dared give. She knew she shouldn’t pressure Rex, but they needed to get away as soon as possible. It wasn’t safe to stay here for much longer.

“Away from the water it is.” Rex led the way, carrying his small amount of salvage with Pyra by his side. Mythra followed with Nia a moment later, letting out a sigh. This salvage plan had seemed great last night when Rex had been unearthing boxes of ancient technology, but now it seemed considerably less sound.

“It’ll be okay,” Nia said. “Might take a while and all, but it’ll happen. We’ve made it this far, I’m sure we can live here like this a bit longer. Remember, we only need enough money for three tickets out of here, I can go back to Gormott whenever I want.”

“Yeah,” Mythra said, still not terribly encouraged. She smiled over at Nia, and took a deep breath. This would work out eventually. She’d been stuck on Indol for long enough, a while more wouldn’t matter.


	10. Encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When salvaging, Rex meets a couple of interesting people.

At the next pier, he was a lot more optimistic, and Rex hoped it was rubbing off on the others. This one was busier, too, with a few ships getting ready to go. That was always good, because traffic churned up the tides and brought new things up. Within almost no time, he’d managed to get ready and dive off the edge, Pyra watching as he went as before.

Down in the cloud sea, it was cold and a little murky, but he knew what he was doing. He’d been right in his prediction- the ships in the port had stirred up the water enough to have a few items just floating around. He snatched a couple of floating items- looked like old dirty silverware to him- and then dove down deeper in search of a larger crate or chest he could pull up.

It took a long while, but eventually he found something drifting down there. A fairly small box, but made of metal, which was always a good sign. If all else failed, the box could be sold for scrap. It was tightly sealed, too, though that didn’t always translate into being free of water once he actually cracked it open.

Pleased with his find, Rex tucked the box under one arm and gripped his dirty silverware, reaching for his grappling hook. He swam his way up to the surface, yelling up to Pyra to clear the pier before firing his grappling hook and jetting up out of the water after it. When he reached the pier, people were watching him as he emerged.

He dumped the box on the ground and let the water out of his suit, glad to relieve the pressure and be up in the open air again. He loved swimming in the Cloud Sea, but people weren’t fish. “This looks like it might be something good,” he said with a grin.

“That’s great,” Pyra said, looking like she wanted to give him a hug but didn’t really want to touch him whilst he was still all wet. Rex found himself rather glad that his suit dried off quickly in this sunny weather.

He crouched next to the box, putting the small bits of silverware to the side, and tried to pry it open. The lid didn’t budge, so he grabbed a small lever from his belt and went at it again. The box wasn’t that nice so he wasn’t too worried about it getting damaged, but it’d be nice to keep it as complete as possible.

“Need some help with that box, kid?” Rex looked up, surprised, to see two men watching them with amusement. Well- one of them looked amused, the other looked like he wanted to get on with whatever they were doing as soon as possible. 

“I should be able to get it myself,” he said, “but thanks for the offer. There’s not much else you can do with a box other than hold it and try to pry it open.” He probably could do with some help, but he didn’t want to bother these strangers with it.

“Hey, I know who you are.” That was Mythra, looking at the two strangers with a slight frown. “You’re those two guys from Tantal...right? I think I saw your faces in the paper a couple of weeks ago.”

“We’ve come from Tantal, but we’re not anyone particular notable-” the white haired man started, but he was interrupted quickly.

“Do you have a problem with us?” the other man asked. He was glaring rather pointedly at Mythra and Rex saw Nia tense up considerably.

“No! Quite the opposite, although it’d be nice if you weren’t so confrontational about it,” Mythra grumbled. Rex still had no idea what the heck was going on- he was pretty sure he’d never seen these two men before in his life.

“I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I’d appreciate some help,” Rex said, trying to defuse the situation. He didn’t like it when people argued so close to the edge of a dock. It was very easy to push someone off the edge. He knew he’d said just a minute ago that he didn’t need help, but maybe bringing the conversation back to the box would take people’s minds off of this.

The man who’d spoken to him in the first place rolled his eyes, then walked over and took the box and the lever from Rex’s hands. It took a little effort even for him to open the box, but after a few moments, it popped open. “There you go,” he said. “My husband and I will be on our way now.”

Rex watched the pair leave with his mouth open. He hadn’t even been given a chance to say thank you. Architect, he hated looking rude. “Thank you!” He called after them, hoping they heard. The white-haired man looked back and flashed him a hasty smile. He glanced down at his now-open box. It was full of jewellery- not the sort that was encrusted with priceless gemstones, but still, this box would earn him a fair bit of money. Now, he turned his attention to Mythra. “What was all that about?”

“That dark-haired man is called Malos,” Mythra explained. “He’s a politician in Tantal. And that was his husband Jin, apparently. I didn’t know they were married, but the way the press portrays it? They basically single handedly introduced marriage equality in Tantal. The Praetorium isn’t pleased.”

“Huh.” Rex honestly had very little clue about anything that was going on in Tantal. Nia looked pleased by the news, though. “That was nice of them. Uh...this box is turning out to be pretty valuable too, so I’m glad they opened it for us.”

“That’s great!” Pyra said, coming to examine what was in the box. “Ooh, that’s pretty. I wonder how it ended up in the Cloud Sea…”

“We don’t really know,” Rex said with a shrug. “We think that maybe lots of people in the past threw things into the Cloud Sea when someone died. Also, when titans reach the end of their lifespan, anything left behind ends up drifting around too.”

“And I bet plenty of people just drop their shit by accident,” Mythra pointed out. “That’s just what happens when you live on a big floating island.”

“Or they fall into the Cloud Sea and drown,” Nia said, shooting the innocent-looking white layer of clouds a mistrustful glare. 

“They don’t fall in with entire boxes of jewellery,” Rex said with a chuckle. “This is too valuable to be leftover goods, I’d hazard to guess, but who knows with the climate of rejecting asylum these days. I’d say they were thrown in to remember someone who died.”

“Cheery,” Mythra remarked, leaning over to poke at the box of gold chains and semi-precious stones. “Do you need me and Nia to go yell at some more shopkeepers for you? We got a pretty good price for those weird old techy things last time.”

“Nah, I know someone who buys jewellery for a good price,” Rex said with a smile. “We should get plenty for this. Not all finds are ever like this, of course, but I think we should be able to save up enough money pretty quickly.”

“That’s great!” Pyra leaned her head against his now-mostly-dry shoulder, and Rex felt his heart do a strange sort of fluttery thing. He almost dropped the box, and even though he managed to hold onto it he was pretty sure he was blushing. 

“Ew, public affection,” Mythra said, and Rex saw Nia look at her and smile. Maybe they weren’t public, but he was pretty sure that the pair of them were probably just as bad in private. “Let’s get going, then. We have some money to earn.”


	11. Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A development happens that changes everything for Nia and Mythra.

A few weeks later, there was another interesting development. They’d collected maybe two thirds of the money they needed, when Mor Ardain became the next nation to get caught up in an uproar about same-sex soulmates. Pyra found out about it mostly through Mythra, who she’d spotted struggling not to grin as she was skimming through an abandoned newspaper one morning. 

“What’s up?” She asked, watching as Mythra attempted to contain her excitement. Her sister always tried to hide how she was feeling in case people teased her about it, but Pyra could always see right through her. “Good stuff in the news today?” 

“Mor Ardain’s done what Tantal did and legally recognised same-sex soulmates.” Mythra pointed out an article in the paper. As this was an Indoline paper, the story was framed as an act of heresy against the Praetorium, but once you looked past that, it was great. “This means that, since Gormott is under Ardainian control, I might be able to apply to seek asylum there with Nia. So you wouldn’t have to pay for my ticket.”

“That’s amazing!” She said, checking their immediate surroundings before pulling her sister into a hug. Maybe this would all be over even sooner than they expected.

“I mean, we don’t know yet,” she said, but she was returning the hug and Pyra could hear the smile in her voice. “But it’s worth a shot.”

“If this works out, Rex won’t need to dive any more, we should already have the money we need.” Pyra grinned. “I hope this does work out. I know Rex is a good diver, but I get worried every time he goes down there…”

“You know he’ll keep doing it once we’re in Gormott, right?” Mythra asked. Pyra thought about it for a moment. She’d sort of been viewing Gormott as an ending, but Mythra was probably right. It was more of a continuation, with the same issues as before; they needed to eat. 

“I guess.” She sighed. “I suppose it’s just my luck, getting a soulmate with such a dangerous job. But maybe he’ll dive less when we’re in Gormott. We won’t have expensive tickets to save up for, after all.”

“Salvaging isn’t dangerous if he knows how to do it,” Mythra said. Her voice sounded firm, but there was a hint of gentleness to it too. “He’ll be fine. He hasn’t run into any problems yet, and Indol is a moving titan. Gormott is a lot slower, and longer. He’d never be left behind.”

“Yeah, true.” Pyra reached out to squeeze her sister’s hand. “Thank you. I just worry, since- y’know, for all we know, our parents might have died in the cloud sea.” Or they could be alive and well somewhere, but there was no way of knowing.

“Completely different circumstances,” Mythra said. “Rex knows what he’s doing. He has equipment, training, and experience. He’s also young and fit and suited to this. It’s a whole other world when you do it as a job.”

“Stop being so logical,” Pyra said with a wry smile. “You’re far too good at making me stop worrying about things.” 

“I’m family, that’s my job. You have a soulmate to worry about, and then family to tell you when you’re being an idiot about it.” Mythra squeezed her tighter before pulling away. “Come on, let’s go find Nia and we can start working out what we’re going to do next.”

Finding Nia was not a hard task these days. She seemed to have some sort of sixth sense for where Mythra was and when she was needed, so it was barely five minutes before she slunk out of an alleyway with Dromarch at her heels. “You two look happy,” she commented immediately. “Why…?” 

“The news,” Mythra said with a grin. Pyra stood back, deciding it was probably better for Mythra to explain this. “Mor Ardain just did a u-turn on same gender relationships. And, well, they control Gormott, so...we might be able to work something out with getting me there.”

Nia’s expression brightened immediately, and Pyra could tell she was fighting the urge to jump forwards and hug Mythra. “If we get down to some sort of government office and tell them we need refuge to Gormott, they can’t really say no. This is perfect!”

“They can say no,” Mythra said pointedly. “And if they turn me into the authorities because of it...we’re stuffed. And I don’t want that to happen. I want us both to be safe and I don’t want to impact your chances of getting to Gormott.”

“There’s an embassy or something, I heard people talking about it,” Pyra interjected quietly. “Although if Indol have decided that they’re no longer supporting Mor Ardain, the embassy for Gormott might not be around much longer.”

“Then there’s no time to lose,” Nia said firmly. “Pyra, can you get Rex? I think we should act as quickly as possible about getting off this Architect forsaken titan as soon as we know we have somewhere to go.”

“I’ll go find him now. When you’ve talked to the embassy, we should meet at the pier where the ships leave from, so we can go immediately if everything goes well.” She reached out to squeeze Mythra’s hand again for a moment. “Good luck, you two. I really hope this works out.” 

“We’ll be fine,” Mythra said. “You worry about getting your boyfriend out of bed, honestly. And that cat of his, too. Everything is on our side this time; we just have to go where the times are pushing us, just like we always have.”

Pyra nodded and ran off, heading for the small, dirty, cheap rented room that Rex was probably still asleep in. She almost tripped over Gramps in the doorway, and she bent down to scoop him up. “Rex! Hey, wake up! We might be leaving Indol today!” 

 

“Wuh…?” Rex rubbed at his eyes, clearly only just waking up from being asleep. “Pyra? What’s going on?” He stretched, yawning deeply. “Why are you here so early?”

“Long story, I’ll explain it on the way. But we need to pack everything and head down to the docks where the ships to Gormott leave from.” She put Gramps down for the moment and started stuffing their very limited possessions into bags. “You have the money from your salvaging, right?”

“Of course,” Rex said. “Need to pay for the room and stuff, but we don’t have enough for three tickets yet. We’ll need at least another week, unless I get really lucky.”

“We only need two now,” she said with a grin. “At least, hopefully. Nia and Mythra are trying to get it sorted right now.”

“Uh...okay?” Rex looked confused, but he scrambled out of bed to help her pack everything in the room. This little place had been Rex’s home for a while now, but Pyra didn’t feel much regret about leaving it. The sooner they could get off of Indol, the better.


	12. A Better Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nia and Mythra apply to leave Indol for good.

“You’re asking for refuge to Gormott?” The woman on the desk asked. She looked very tired. Nia couldn’t imagine that her job could be described as easy, especially with the new diplomatic tensions. “You’re an ex citizen, and this is your soulmate, also requesting to go?”

“Yep. And we need to leave quickly.” Nia rested her elbow on the desk, leaning over. She didn’t feel too good about being pushy with someone so obviously overworked, but she couldn’t see that they had any other choice. “As you can tell, we’re not really welcome on Indol.”

“Just be patient a moment, please,” she said with an exhausted looking smile, and Nia felt Mythra touch her arm.

“Please be nice,” Mythra mumbled. “This is our only shot and they’re not exactly going to start a witch hunt for us right this second. We’re fine with waiting.”

“But not waiting too long,” Nia said, although she reluctantly backed off from the desk a little. The woman at the desk turned to a computer, tapping away at the keyboard. Nia just forced herself to wait as patiently as she could.

“Ships run all day, Nia,” Mythra said gently, casting a look around the room before wrapping an arm around her waist. Nia was glad for the comfort, but it also set her on edge. Who knew who might be watching and judging? “We just need to be able to leave. That’s all.”

“I’ve found your details on file,” the woman at the desk said. “You should be able to get refuge, just take a seat over there and I’ll go sort this out.” Nia wanted to ask how long this was going to take, but she bit her tongue and sat down instead.

It was nerve wracking and she felt like her heart was going to leap out of her chest. She'd been living in fear for so long and she didn’t want to risk anything at this point. She had more to lose now than she’d ever had, what with Dromarch at her side and a fairly okay (well, it was dry) home and most importantly Mythra. If it was all taken away when she was so close...she didn’t know what she’d do.

“It’s gonna be fine,” Mythra said quietly. “You’re practically vibrating, before I ask how I know that you’re worried.” 

“I just wish they’d hurry up and sort this out,” Nia mumbled. “Ugh… I hate waiting for things like this.”

“It’s fine,” Mythra said. “We have to wait, that’s just how it is. We can’t do anything to shorten the process, so the only thing you can do is try and stop worrying about it. We’re the closest we’ve ever been to just being okay. So all we have to do is wait, and things will turn out fine.”

It took almost an hour for the woman to finally return, holding a small sheaf of paperwork. Nia shot up out of her chair like it was electrified, and went right back to leaning over the desk. “So?”

“So,” the woman said with a sigh. “You should be fine. Show this to the Gormotti boat captain. If I were you, I wouldn’t show it to anyone Indoline who happens to be on board.”

“Thank you so much,” Mythra said, coming up behind her, and Nia knew without looking that she was shooting the woman with a vivid smile. “This means a lot. And I’m sorry if we’re a bit antsy. It’s a stressful situation. Thank you for being so quick and being so nice about it.”

“Not a problem,” said the woman, giving Nia a pointed look. Nia gave her a sheepish smile, then grabbed Mythra’s arm and pulled her out of the building. It was ten minutes’ walk to the docks from here- five minutes if they ran, though. And she was more than impatient enough to run. 

“Slow down!” Mythra said, tugging on Nia’s hand after only a few moments. “Relax. Please. Just let go of my hand and we’ll take this normally. Just taking a stroll to the docks to meet up with my sister and her boyfriend who’s a salvager.” Reluctantly, Nia let go of Mythra’s hand. She knew why Mythra was worried, but she was worried about just the same things.

“Fine.” She slowed herself down, and they made their way to the docks in a tense, excited sort of silence. Nia had to resist the urge to break into a run again when the ships came into view, and she spied the one that was bound for Gormott. “Where are Rex and Pyra?”

“I’m sure they’ll be here in a moment,” Mythra said. Architect her voice was so gentle and understanding. What had she done to deserve someone like this? “They had stuff to pack, after all, and then they have to carry it all here, including all of Rex’s salvaging gear.”

“Mythra! Nia!” That was Pyra’s voice, and she was running towards them with her arms piled full of bags. Rex was a step behind her, carrying even more bags and wearing his full set of salvaging gear. Easier than carrying it, Nia supposed. “Are you okay? Can we leave?”

Nia waved the papers clutched in her hands. She’d taken a quick glance over them and they seemed standard enough, with lots of legal language and a few phrases that had obviously been changed to match Mythra’s situation. “We’re free to go,” she said with a grin. “Give me those bags and go buy your two tickets?”

“Great!” Pyra dumped her bags on the floor and pulled Mythra into a hug, then after a moment reached out an arm to drag Nia into it too. Nia was not a hugging person when anyone other than Mythra was involved, but she could make an exception for right now. She was too stressed to feel the joy that Pyra was obviously feeling right now, but she was getting pretty close.

Nia watched as the pair went off to buy their tickets, gathering the bags at her feet. Someone Indoline approached her and she felt her whole body freeze. “Are you going somewhere?” She asked. Her tone sounded friendly but Nia was immediately wary.

“Gormott,” she said shortly. “It’s all legal.” She glanced at Mythra, and at Rex, who was lingering a couple steps away. An idea popped into her head. “I’m going home with my soulmate.” She reached out, grabbing Rex’s arm and shooting him a ‘you better play along’ glare before turning a bright smile on the Indoline woman. Rex hesitated a moment before doing the same. “You can see our paperwork if you want.” 

The woman considered it, looking between the two of them and then at Mythra, and shook her head. “The ship’s captain will check everything when you board. Have a safe journey…”

“Have a good day!” Rex called, tipping her a short wave and grinning brightly. The moment the woman was out of sight, Nia dropped his arm. “That was quick thinking. You did a good job getting her off our back, though I doubt she was here to refuse us anything.”

“Yeah, well, can’t be too safe, Shellhead.” Nia sniffed her hand, and wrinkled her nose. “Your suit smells like seaweed.” 

 

Before Rex could defend himself over that accusation, Pyra came running back with two small pieces of paper in hand. “We had barely enough money. There’s a few small coins left, so I guess we can buy ourselves lunch on the boat. And we should probably get on board, it leaves in five minutes.”

From there, it was a mad rush to pick up all their bags and shepherd the cats onto the ship. By the time they were on, the ship was nearly ready to go, so they sat down in a hurry after showing all the tickets and documents. They got a strange look from the person checking the tickets, but nothing was said when they got to Mythra’s documents. Nia allowed herself to relax slightly. They were nearly there.

It was a full day and a half’s journey to Gormott, even with the tides as favourable as they were. Nia didn’t like being on a ship any more than she liked the thought of staring down into the cloud sea, but it was a little easier to rest in their overnight room when she was able to sleep curled up next to Mythra for the first time.

Her excitement reached its peak when Gormott finally came into view. Torigoth was visibly bustling, even though the sight of the Ardainian base put a bad taste in Nia’s mouth. Seeing the sun shining across the plains, breathing the air she knew was so much fresher than Gormott’s...it was an amazing feeling.

But even better was the feeling of stepping off the boat with luggage in one hand and Mythra’s hand tight in the other. They were free of the prejudice that had plagued them in Indol. They were free to be themselves. And, finally, Nia felt like she’d found the people and place where she could rebuild and have a happy life.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :) if you have anything to say, a comment would mean a lot bc it lets us know what's going right/wrong in this.


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